Once drawn in by Janet, Ruth became less interested in new clothes and hairdos and it took a great amount of effort to prod her into going to Madame’s for fittings, even though I pointed out Madame was highly selective in her patrons, and wouldn’t countenance people who failed to show for appointments. Ruth crinkled her nose and consented to go, adding, “All right. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate your doing this for me, Cousin Claire … it’s just that, well, if she wouldn’t stare at me so. Gives me goose bumps.” This was but a convenient excuse, of course. Madame thought of nothing but the garments she fitted to women. She saw each as a work of art, and rightly so.
“I wish you could be a little more co-operative,” I told Ruth one day. “I’m only trying to help you, after all. It’s scarcely a week before the evening we’ve planned with the Marlowes at the Garten, and once you’ve met Teddy, I’m sure there’ll be no end to the parties you’ll be attending, the other people you will meet. If you want this to be a good summer, you’ve got to put some effort into it.”
“All right, but I’m just a simple country girl, really. I’m having fun enough learning to paint and to play new pieces on the piano—did I tell you I’ve almost mastered the ‘Minuet in G’?—and Janet’s such a love, to put up with me all the time.”
“I expect she won’t have to so much once you’ve met a few people your own age. And believe me, dear, when we’re through dressing you up, you will dazzle them all.”
“Maybe so …”
I believe Ruth must have pined away after her Frenchman throughout the summer, for I would hear her crying softly in her room from time to time, for no apparent reason, and while I thought at first she’d probably overcome her sorrow as the summer wore on, she seemed to become more prone to sudden tears as the days went by, rather than happier and more self-assured.
Certainly Josh Driscoll failed to hold her interest, as I suspected he would. She returned from their only evening together with a look of relief across her face. “He is nice,” she said to Charles and me as we were having a late cup of tea in the kitchen, “altogether too nice. Too patronizing, too proper—not that I don’t believe in propriety, you understand. But it’s as though he wears it like a shield. Then of course I have no luck talking with him—he’s too nervous for one thing, and for another, we have nothing in common.
“I am sorry, though. I don’t mean to be critical. I know you’re both trying hard to entertain me and I appreciate it so much. The truth is, I’m having a marvelous time even if I haven’t found any interesting men here … it’s just I’m no good at pretending when I—”
“Don’t worry,” said Charles. “You needn’t see Josh Driscoll again for our sakes. When is it we go to the Garten, Claire? Wednesday? Good. Perhaps you’ll like Teddy. But don’t feel you must. Dishonesty wouldn’t suit you.”
He was right, of course, yet I couldn’t take the importance of the coming dinner party as lightly as he, for I had more at stake in the situation than he did. So I did a good deal of worrying over the days which followed, while trying not to seem obvious to either Ruth or Charles. Yet on Wednesday afternoon I began another menstrual flood, and it was apparent that whatever happened between Teddy and Ruth, I’d be no witness to it.
“We’ll cancel if you can’t go,” she said. “We can do it another time.”
“Nonsense. After I pulled teeth getting you fitted into that yellow organdie, and we spent all that time curling your hair this morning? You’ll simply be accompanied by Charles alone, that’s all. He and the Marlowes are great friends, and I’m sure there won’t be any awkwardness about the odd number. Pretty soon you’ll find them talking about some business or other, and it will leave you free to get acquainted with Teddy. I’d only be in the way, probably.”
She looked disappointed. “All right, but we’ll be home early. It just won’t be any fun without you.” She kissed my cheek and started out of the room. “Anyway, I’ll probably have a headache from all these pins in my hair. Honestly, it feels nine pounds heavier since we curled it.”
“The discomfort of being beautiful is part of a woman’s lot in life, I’m afraid. But it’s getting late. You’ve got to hurry and get dressed, and I want to see you before you leave.”
“All right. Did you take your medicine?”
“No. I won’t take it until you and Charles leave. It makes me too groggy, and I want to see how you look.”
“Okay, but I don’t know whether I’m ready for that dress or not. Not that it isn’t pretty, and any girl would be delighted to have it. But when I think of how I looked just a few weeks ago when I got off the train … well, Mother probably wouldn’t recognize me if she saw me in it.”
After she was gone I indulged in a small triumphant smile.
There was a nice afternoon breeze sifting through the open window, and soon I dozed.
When Ruth returned to the bedroom to awaken me, it took several minutes to realize she actually stood across from me, like a picture from a storybook, in a dress that was without doubt another triumph for Madame, fitted tightly around the waist and designed to enhance the bust line. She’d studded her cascade curls with tiny yellow rosebuds picked that morning from my garden, and pinched her cheeks to heighten their color, the way I taught her to do.
She will never know how proud I was at that moment, for all the superlatives I uttered, and I commanded her to turn round four or five times so I could feast my eyes on every line of the dress. Finally I leaned back against the pillows and asked where Charles was.
“He’s bathing, I think,” she said. “I wanted to be ready early, so I could show off my new dress to Janet and Rubin.”
“So it’s not so bad after all, looking like a princess.”
“I do, don’t I?” she said, her eyes glowing. “I don’t think I realized how grand it would look once we put everything together. Thank you, Claire,” she said, and put her arms around me. “Thank you, thank you!”
“Um, you smell good. What’s that scent?”
“French Bouquet, the real perfume. Cornel gave it to me along with the dusting powder and I’ve never worn it before. I never even wore it for him. Isn’t that funny?”
“Get your mind off that bounder, and have fun tonight. Believe me, there are plenty of men who would have given their eyeteeth to have had what he gave up so easily.”
“It’s too bad really,” she said thoughtfully. “Could he have seen me tonight, he might … oh well, you’re right. It’s all over and I’m going to have fun in Galveston.”
Ruth always washed her hair on Monday, and often when she was finished we’d sit together in the backyard, the sunshine drying her long tresses as she pulled a hairbrush through them.
On the first Monday following the evening at the Garten Verein, then, we discussed Teddy Marlowe. It seemed an age since we’d had any time alone, for I had been in bed from Wednesday through Saturday, too dopey from the medicine to care about talking to anyone, and Sunday Teddy had called to take Ruth to church, then spent the afternoon and evening with her.
“Well now, tell me, what do you think of the Marlowe boy?” I said. She was sitting on a quilt spread on the ground in front of my chair, and had all her blond hair brushed forward, hiding her face.
“Oh, he’s all right … more fun by a long shot than Josh Driscoll or that other boy I went with one night from St. Christopher’s—what was his name, Steven Winnebank, or Winneberg, or something?”
“Teddy certainly seems taken with you. His father told Charles he’d mentioned your name quite regularly over the past few days.”
“Is that so?” She lowered her head still further, then raised it up straight, pulling all the hair to the back. “To tell you the truth, Cousin Claire, Teddy can dance circles around his father, but Mr. Marlowe is much more interesting to talk to. And I do get such a kick from watching him get all fired up over something … then Mrs. Marlowe touches his arm or gives him a dirty look—to quieten him down—then she gets started on something
and talks twice as loud as he did. They really are a pair.”
“Teddy, though … he seems a bright boy, doesn’t he?”
“Oh yes—ooh! There’s a tangle—you know, I think he knows more about the war than anyone I’ve ever met. He’ll probably grow up to be a general in the army or something.”
“His father fears he may favor a military career, but, you know, Pete really hopes to get Teddy into his law firm one day.”
“That reminds me, I’m going to begin helping Cousin Charles in his office a couple of days a week, typing.”
“Oh? He doesn’t own a typewriter, does he?”
“No, but he thinks he can get a Remington from someone going out of business down from his office. I learned to use one last year at the Ped, and I even won a prize for being the best typist in the class.”
“But haven’t you enough to do?”
“I guess so, but I was fascinated to hear him and Mr. Marlowe discuss their work. Then I was astounded to learn poor Charles writes everything out in longhand, himself. Think how much I could help him—then he’d be free to get away from the office more and go on picnics and things.”
“I don’t know, I don’t hold much with going down there myself.”
“I know. He said you’d only been there once. But more and more girls are becoming interested in office work. One girl in my typing class is working in a bookshop this summer, typing orders and even doing book reviews for the Star.”
“My, my, book reviews in the Star? Times have changed! When do you go to work?”
“Tomorrow, if Charles can get the machine. Types in upper and lower case, he says. That’s the kind of machine I learned on—nothing but the newest and best for Mrs. Tannery, you know.”
“Have you and Teddy made any plans for this week?”
“We’re going to a young people’s dance at the Garten Friday night. He wants me to meet some of his friends that are home for the summer.”
“Marvelous! But you’ll need another party dress, won’t you?”
“Janet’s offered to make me one out of some light green crepe de chine she never got round to using.”
“But I’m sure Madame would—”
“Nothing doing, Claire. You’ve spent far too much money on me already. Besides, this is short notice and I know Madame wouldn’t be able to get it done on time. Now, don’t look disappointed … if I let you indulge me all summer, I’ll be too spoiled to go back home to Grady and dust merchandise again.”
“But are you sure Janet can do a professional job?”
“We’re choosing a simple design—not elaborate like the yellow organdie—this isn’t to be that formal a party.”
“Very well, then. You know, I saw a gorgeous mint green fan at the Emporium not long ago—hand-painted ivory with lavender flowers … we could put lavender flowers in your hair this time—I can see it now. I must get Janet to show me the dress design. Maybe I can help.”
“Oh, Cousin Claire, really, I wish you wouldn’t make over everything so much. I can’t ever repay you for what you’ve already done.”
“Forgive me, dear, but I never had anyone to make over or dress up, and I never realized until you came just how much I’d missed.”
She put a hand out and touched my knee. “I’m sorry, Cousin Claire, really I am. I didn’t realize you felt that way … but then don’t be silly. You’re not possibly old enough to even give a thought to being my mother.” She sat back down and began stroking her hair again.
“But your mother is not that much older than I, dear.”
“I know that, but she looks so much older.”
“That’s because she’s worked so much harder. She’s had a harder lot.”
“That’s true, all right. You know, there was a time when I worried awfully about her. But I finally decided she thrives on that store. I mean it. She’s down there from seven sharp every morning, till after nine o’clock at night. She knows everyone in town, and will go to any length to fill special orders for people. Everybody loves her.”
“Oh, how I long to see her! We’ve simply got to make plans to go back before long.”
“I know. I tried to get her to come with me this summer, but no one could wedge her away from that store.”
“Maybe this fall, or after Christmas perhaps, we could go. Of course I may not be able to go anywhere. There’s a strong possibility I may have to have an operation if things continue to go as they have.”
“Oh no! Doesn’t the medicine help? Or can’t they do something else for you?”
“The medicine kills the pain and makes me sleep, and that’s all. I think the bottle I’ve just opened must be stronger than the last. It certainly seems to have more of an effect.”
“Do you go through this every month? Oh, if I had to I would simply die!”
“No. That’s the curious thing. It will go on for four or five months straight, then suddenly go back to normal. A year or so later, it will start all over again.”
“Oh, I do hope you’re not confined to bed any more for a long time—forever, of course, if possible. But I miss you when you have to stay cooped up and you don’t get to go places with us.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m so thankful for having Charles to fill in for me. And I guess, Janet too …”
“You don’t mind my spending time with her, do you? We seem to have so much in common. And I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who seems so alone. A preacher’s wife! You’d think she would spend all her time planning bazaars and going to meetings … yet she does none of these things. She seems a person apart from everything around her, somehow, as though she doesn’t really belong. Does that make any sense?”
“It does indeed. I’ve felt it many times myself.”
“Sometimes the look she gets in her eyes … a kind of faraway, receding look … gives me the shivers.”
“Yes,” I said, amazed at Ruth’s ability to put into words what I had so often felt but could not describe.
Chapter 15
Much of Ruth’s summer lies hazy within my memory, like a dream once poignant yet now faded, so that it dances several feet distant when one tries to catch it up, and laughs at one’s inability to reach it.
I do know I spent much time in bed from June to September, the first bleeding siege denying me the party at the Garten, then another two or three weeks later, lasting four or five days, then still another and another, and on and on. It seems to me now that I was always uncomfortably hot; always had limp hair dangling around my shoulders; always had the smell of medicine on my breath and the taste in my mouth.
Charles got his Remington, and Ruth spent the rest of the summer working two—sometimes three—days a week with him, both of them returning tired at the end of the day, yet still devoting much of the dinner conversation to cases Charles was working on, Ruth obviously as interested in their outcomes as he.
The longer her work with him continued, the more it pleased me, for the experience, I realized, might prove invaluable to her someday, and Betsey, being practical, would appreciate this aspect of her visit perhaps more than any other.
And of course she had less free time for piano playing and art lessons with Janet, especially since she soon began seeing more of Teddy Marlowe. It was a bit strange to witness at first, for she had seemed almost passive about him in the beginning. But then, within a couple of weeks after their first evening together, she appeared almost to embark on a concentrated effort to go with him whenever and wherever he wished, rarely turning down an invitation from him. Finally, unable to contain my satisfaction any longer, I wrote to Betsey:
“Ruth has become quite the belle of the ball around Galveston. She and Teddy Marlowe, son of a prominent attorney here and a good friend of ours, are keeping more and more in each other’s company, attending gala parties at least once a week and outings with friends at the beach and lake when time permits. Believe me, if summer’s end saw a commitment between them, you would laugh at your worries over her be
ing jilted by the Frenchman in Grady. Teddy Marlowe is the top choice among the eligible bachelors here, and will no doubt one day be as prominent in the legal profession as his father … and of course will inherit his father’s wealth.…”
I knew as I sealed the envelope I’d exaggerated a little about Teddy’s future as an attorney, when he was still reported to be considering a military career. Still, I saw no harm in looking at the bright side of it, and mailed the letter without changing a word. Shortly after though, I was to learn it wouldn’t have mattered what I had said in the letter, and I wished I’d never put it in the post office box.
One night toward the end of summer I passed by Ruth’s bedroom door and heard her crying. I knocked, yet she didn’t answer. Finally I tried the door, and found it unlocked. “Ruth, dear, forgive me for barging in, but what’s the matter?” She lay diagonally across the bed, her face hidden.
“Nothing. It’s all right.”
“It isn’t all right, if you’re upset,” I told her, and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked so pretty then, with her long hair hanging down the back of her dark green robe. I wanted to help her, was afraid I’d done something to upset her.
“It’s just that everything is in such a mess,” she said, still refusing to look at me. “I should never have come.”
“It’s Teddy Marlowe, isn’t it? You’ve been seeing him for our benefit, and now he’s done something to upset you.”
She pulled up and turned over to look at me, her face pinched and wet. “He wants to marry me,” she said. “Wants me to wait for him till he finishes school.”
“Do you want to?”
“Want to? No, I couldn’t possibly, now …”
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